Rath and Storm

by Peter Archer

—

  They entered Volrath’s Stronghold cautiously. Starke said he had been there before, and had warned them of certain predictable risks. He knew of mogg platoons pacing the Stronghold’s corridors, and certain magical traps he knew of. Starke went first, beside Gerrard, with Mirri and Crovax close behind. The halls were irregularly shaped, as if they had grown from Rath’s rock, and the torches that lit the corridors flickered in strange warm air currents, so that the walls and ceilings seemed to alter in the inconstant light. Sounds trickled down the halls, echoing until they were unrecognizable, even as voice or scream or clockwork.

  They entered a large corridor, broad enough to walk four abreast, with a roof that soared into shadow far overhead. It seemed directed toward the Stronghold’s core, and so they walked along it, checking each branching hallway. For the heart of an empire, the place seemed empty, despite the noises.

  Mirri stopped suddenly. “Wait.”

  “What?” Starke said nervously, but she only gestured impatiently, ears swiveling and nose twitching.

  “There.” She pointed at an odd outcropping on the wall, pulling her sword. “There’s a thing there.”

  The section of wall she had pointed out jumped forward. It was no wall, but a living creature. Its misshapen body might once have been that of a mogg or an elf, but its limbs seemed poorly attached and unmatched, like a child’s bad drawing. It crouched on the ground, narrow unformed head lashing from side to side as it looked for an escape. Mirri darted past it, trapping it. When it tried to rush past, she slashed at it. “I don’t think so.”

  It bared its ragged teeth and recoiled. Gerrard stepped closer, sword in his hand. “So what are you: animal, vegetable, or mineral?” he said in a conversational tone. The creature looked around again, then up, for the first time seeing the soaring ceiling.

  Like paint in rain or clay under invisible hands, its body began shifting, to become a woman’s slender torso, clad in the shadow of armor and silk. Limbs resolved themselves into arms with long-fingered hands and legs ending in slim booted feet. Flesh shifted: a face formed, that of a helmeted woman with cold pure features, eyebrows shaped like the twisting of a falcon’s wing. And then came the wings themselves. Pulling from the creature’s shoulders, perfect feathers made of layered flesh beginning to fill out shapes like the wings of birds—or angels.

  “Selenia!” Crovax gasped.

  “No,” Gerrard said. “It’s some sort of shapechanger. Perhaps we can—”

  Gerrard never finished. With a howl of rage, Crovax hurled himself at the creature. She whirled, half-formed wings flaring.

  His sword came down where she had been, but half-fledged, she leapt an incredible jump that took her over Mirri’s shoulder and into the corridor beyond. Crovax knocked Mirri out of the way, and bolted after the shapechanger, bare sword in hand. Mirri, Gerrard, and Starke ran down the halls after them, but Crovax and the shapechanger easily outpaced them.

  Crovax caught up to her in a huge room filled with seats like an amphitheater around a mysterious device. There were several doors out of the room, and this is what killed her. She paused to choose, and in that moment, Crovax threw himself at her. He caught her by one slender arm. She screamed wordlessly at him, and bared her teeth, clawing at his face. Teeth and nails began to lengthen, shaping themselves to a fiercer function. He slammed his fist into her changing face, and again. She clawed at him, but he caught her hand in his, and twisted her arm until he heard a cracking noise. He grabbed one strange flesh-feather wing in his hand, bracing his other hand against her shoulder. She screamed again. He bared his teeth as he ripped the wing from her body, black-red blood pumping into his face.

  Gerrard and Mirri ran in to find him tearing the shapeshifter’s limbs free. She still bore the angel’s form, but she was melting as she died.

  Crovax cursed as she died, slamming his fist into the remains of her face. “My family died! Where were you, when Volrath’s people came to the estate, killed them, one by one? Here?”

  There was no answer.

  Gerrard and Mirri looked at one another in horror; it was Gerrard who at last approached Crovax where he knelt in the ruins of the shapeshifter. She was not much more than rags of flesh, smears of blood. The fist he kept pounding into her was hitting the floor now, splitting his knuckles so that his own red blood splashed over the thick darker blood of the creature. “Crovax,” Gerrard said; then, when Crovax did not stop, more loudly. Gerrard laid a hand on Crovax’s shoulder. He whirled, eyes drowned in madness, and raised a gore-smeared fist. Gerrard dropped back a step. “Crovax, come back to us.”

  The madness ebbed. Crovax blinked and shook his head, raised a hand as if to rub his face and stopped when he saw the mess. He stood quickly, looked down at what he had done.

  “It looked like Selenia,” he said, swallowing heavily Gerrard shook his head. “It was a shapechanger. It saw her and took her form, that’s all.” Their voices dropped into the immense space without an echo, like a coin dropped into a bottomless well.

  “It should not have taken her form.” Crovax’s hands were shaking now. He pressed them against his thighs, leaving glossy prints on his leggings.

  “What happened, Crovax?” Gerrard gestured at the shapeshifter’s remains. “You could have just grabbed it.” Crovax’s voice caught as he tried to respond. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I had to kill it. It belongs to Volrath. It would have betrayed us.”

  “You didn’t have to kill it like this.”

  “I saw her,” Crovax said finally. “Selenia. When Predator attacked us, she was there.”

  Gerrard frowned. “I know. That doesn’t explain this.” He looked at Mirri, who shrugged and shook her head.

  “She was there. I think she led them to us.”

  “Why?” Gerrard said. “I thought she was your guardian angel.”

  “I thought so, too,” Crovax sobbed. “I thought she did not save my family because she was imprisoned in some way. But now—”

  “Still,” Gerrard said, “the shapechanger was not your angel.”

  Crovax said nothing. Mirri and Starke watched, silent.

  Gerrard watched him for a long moment. “I don’t think you’re a good risk for this. You ran off without thinking about safety, and then—” he gestured to the wreckage on the room’s floor. “We’re still close to Weatherlight, Crovax. I want you to return there.”

  “No.” Crovax frowned. “No, I can’t. She’s here, Gerrard. I have to find her.”

  “Why? So you can rip her to pieces, pull her wings off?” Gerrard took an impatient pace away and turned. “No, we can’t risk it.”

  Through clenched teeth, Crovax said, “No. The shapeshifter had no right to her form, that’s all. You need me. Selenia was created to watch over my family; she is vulnerable only to the members of my family. Do you want to have her kill Mirri here? Maybe yourself?” Mirri opened her mouth to speak. Crovax continued, “I am the only one who can stop her. And I must.”

  Gerrard stroked his beard.

  “Please let me find her,” Crovax said, in a voice as raw as a wound. “The Legacy is your destiny, Gerrard, but Selenia is mine. Do not deny me this.”

  Gerrard tipped his head back and sighed deeply. “Very well. But control yourself, Crovax. The deeper into the Stronghold we get, the longer your walk back to the ship will be.”

  * * *

  —

  I was not there. I was at the ship, patient Orim, waiting and spinning and clearing the last crew members from my infirmary. But I know Crovax and Gerrard. These are the words they would have said, the gestures they would have made. No one knows Crovax better. He spoke to me when he spoke to no other, and I, trained to see illnesses of the soul as well as of the body, heard the things his words did not say.

  * * *

  —

  The room they were in was vast, big enough to float W
eatherlight in. The walls were green glass clinging like soap film between brassy supports, but even large as it was, it was dominated by the mechanism in its center. Strange mechanical jaws extended from ceiling and floor; suspended between them was a huge sphere, like a giant pearl in a deformed setting. Gerrard was the one who recognized it as a map of sorts, a spherical map of all of Dominaria—home. Mirri and Gerrard puzzled it out between them: Volrath was planning to invade us, and this was his guide. Starke contributed little, obsessed perhaps with rescuing his daughter. And Crovax said less, only wiped his hands on his leggings again and again, as if trying to remove the stains from them.

  The four of them traveled through the mountain’s heart. Many things happened, but though he was there they are not truly part of Crovax’s story. They crawled through narrow passages, crept across arching bridges. They found Karn. His gentle nature had been ravaged by Volrath, who forced him to kill. They found Tahngarth, his form changed by Volrath’s tortures. They found Sisay trapped in a crystal cylinder, but when they freed her she was just another shapechanger. Crovax did not fall into the killing frenzy again, but he was silent, grim-faced. I think he spent much of the time thinking about the angel.

  They still searched for Sisay and the Legacy and Starke’s daughter. Starke thought perhaps they were in Volrath’s Dream Halls, and so he led them to yet another stone bridge.

  Created of ragged stone that looked as though it had splashed and frozen in place, the bridge was a slender arch, without a railing. The crew members moved cautiously onto it, forced by its width into single file. Starke knew where they were going, so he was first, followed by Crovax, then Mirri, then Karn and Tahngarth silent and shaken from their tortures, and Gerrard at the rear. Only Crovax and Mirri had swords out; if Volrath’s people saw them and chose to kill them, it would be a simple matter to destroy them from a distance, with arrows and crossbow bolts. What good would a sword do? And the path was narrow, except for Mirri (who had the perfect balance of her kind), and Crovax (too driven by his destiny to fall), everyone used both arms to balance themselves against the strange hot air currents that blasted them.

  * * *

  —

  They were halfway across when the attack came, but it was not arrows. Buffeted by a sudden wind, Starke lost his balance and fell to one knee. The rest of the party paused for a moment, to let him catch his breath. They watched both ends of the bridge, looking for signs they had been detected.

  The scream overhead took them all by surprise. It might have been a woman’s voice raised in wordless pain, or it might have been a falcon’s killing cry. It was neither and both—it was Selenia, the guardian angel.

  She attacked from above, diving like a great hawk, dark wings spread wide. She held her sword in both hands over her head like a giant dagger ready to plunge down. Her pale face was beautiful in the way a well-made knife is beautiful, and colder than steel.

  She aimed directly for Crovax. And Crovax, armed though he was, stood stunned and watched her drop toward him, like a rabbit under a raptor’s claws.

  Mirri snarled and jumped forward. From the end of the line, Gerrard shouted “No!” but Mirri was already in motion, sword arcing up to intersect the angel’s downward sweep. Unable to get through the defense, the angel changed targets. Her blade ran with the reflected colors of Rath’s skies as it sliced sideways. Mirri screamed as the blade connected. The cat warrior dropped her sword and fell to the bridge, hands pressed against a deep wound across the abdomen, from hipbone to hipbone. The angel fluttered back from the bridge, then ducked in again to kill Mirri.

  But Crovax’s sword stopped her this time. Steel against steel, angel in air and man braced on stone, they hung. “Please don’t do this,” Crovax cried in a voice barely human.

  “I must,” she replied. Her voice was like a broken bell. Tears glittered in her eyes. With shrieking of steel, the swords slid apart. The angel’s blade struck the stone of the bridge, and sparks showered down.

  “How can you do this?” Crovax shrieked as he swung overhead at her. The angel danced backward on the air just out of reach before whirling forward again. The swords met over Crovax’s head, crossed steel. Tears blinded him. “You were my angel, mine!”

  “I wish you had not come to Rath,” she said. The ice in her face seemed to melt, and she sobbed. “Why didn’t you stay safe on Dominaria, safe at home?”

  “‘Safe?’” Crovax swung again. “You left us, and my family were killed. I am the last of my line. Where is the safety there?” He swung blindly, to keep her out of range until he dashed the tears from his eyes and could see again.

  “Please don’t make me do this,” she cried. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “And now you betray me.” The final word ripped into an inarticulate roar, and he jumped forward at her, inches from plunging off the bridge’s side.

  “I had no choice!” Her sword flicked out and caught him. With a cry he stumbled back, blood blooming from a cut along his cheek. “I am what I was made,” she said. “Why did you not stay away?”

  “Because I loved you,” he answered through clenched teeth.

  “Then you were twice fool,” she said bitterly and swung again. “Once for coming to Rath, and once for loving an angel.”

  “Don’t do this!” Crovax blocked and thrust. “If you feel anything for me, stop.”

  “Don’t!” she cried. “I cannot stop your destiny—or mine.” She attacked as if to silence him, flickering steel ringing between them. He fell back to one knee.

  Starke was gone, of course. He had bolted for the bridge’s end as soon as the attack had begun. Karn watched, paralyzed, still dazed from Volrath’s tortures. Behind Karn, Tahngarth cursed and pounded on his back, but there was no way past the golem, no way but the one Gerrard found. He dropped to his belly and snaked between Tahngarth’s and Karn’s legs to get to Mirri. Her abdomen was slashed open; he saw gleaming tissues inside in the second before he pressed both hands against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

  The fight continued between Crovax and his angel, in silence now. They each wept as they fought, and the tears on Crovax’s face mingled with his blood. Selenia’s tears slipped ignored from her face, and shone as they dropped into the depths. Mirri’s blood still leaked onto the bridge and ran along its irregular surface. Crovax stepped back and slipped, barely catching himself. As he fought for balance, the angel’s blade flicked in again and sliced open his arm. Crovax was losing. It is impossible to fight an angel: she made her sword dance as easily as before, though his blocks grew slower and slower still.

  “You should not have come,” she said. “I would do anything to save you, but I cannot.” She raised her sword one last time and froze, as if listening to an unexpected voice calling her name. Half-blinded and exhausted, Crovax gathered himself and thrust wildly. And it connected, piercing her heart, or where it would have been, had she been woman and not angel.

  She did not die, or not exactly. She arched up into the air above Crovax, wings a great shadow over him. She looked down for a moment with great black eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry Our destinies are completed. We are both doomed.” Then her stabbed body shattered into countless glittering shards.

  Crovax was lost in a blizzard of flakes of feather and blood that shifted to white and black crystals and then back. The shards that had been Selenia burst out into a huge sphere, but whirled like a cyclone back together, a funnel of light and dark, of light and shadow, forming and reforming the shape of wings as they fell onto Crovax. Her great sword clattered to the bridge beside Crovax. He cried out and the shards swept into his mouth, then gathered around him, thrusting themselves into eyes, ears, and mouth. He screamed hoarsely and clawed at his face. He shuddered as if struck while the crystals forced themselves into his body.

  And then they were gone. After the screaming and the whirlwind, the space seemed filled with ringing silence. The
only sound was Mirri’s panting as Gerrard pressed against the gash in her belly.

  Crovax stood unsteadily.

  “Crovax, are you all right?” Gerrard said.

  Crovax said nothing, took a step toward the bridge’s edge.

  “Crovax, you had to kill her,” Gerrard said. “Karn? Tahngarth? I can’t let go of Mirri.”

  Karn still did not move. With a grunt, Tahngarth vaulted over him and leapt across Mirri and Gerrard. He caught Crovax just as he stepped off the bridge.

  “Let me go,” Crovax croaked.

  “No,” Tahngarth said. “I can live through this; you can too.”

  Their eyes met for a long moment, and then Crovax collapsed to the bloody stone of the bridge. He cuddled the angel’s sword to himself, and wept.

  * * *

  —

  Tahngarth brought Mirri and Crovax back to me, one over each shoulder as if they were sacks of grain. I heard his voice and ran up the gangway. Tahngarth, hideously misshapen, was lowering Mirri into the arms of Davved and Zinaida. At the change in position, Mirri murmured incoherently and struck out at Davved, who caught her clawed hand easily as he took her weight onto his shoulders. Blood dripped onto the deck from a stained bandage around her belly. “Into the infirmary!” I shouted. I touched her face as Davved carried her past; she was hot to the touch.

  Tahngarth lowered the other body. It was Crovax.

  “What happened?” I said. Crovax was conscious but his skin was as pale as the dead. He breathed the fast shallow breaths of an animal.

  Crovax said nothing. Tahngarth said only, “He is ill. Do what you can.”

  “Crovax, talk to me.” I tipped his head up to check his pupils for signs of concussion. He pulled away. I bit my lip, trying not to cry. “Crovax, come downstairs.”

  He followed me, but I do not know why.

  * * *

  —

  Mirri lies on her cot, swathed in bandages. She had the beginnings of fever, which I brought down with herbs from home and a spell taught me by my old master; now she sleeps, with the near-silent breathing of her people.